


Peridots' Day Out

by Coniferoussiblings



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Comedy, F/F, Fish out of Water, Friendship, Romance, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6662248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coniferoussiblings/pseuds/Coniferoussiblings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the highly regimented ultra-efficient society of Homeworld a worker gem like Peridot would never experience free time.</p><p>This is earth though, and its up to Amethyst to teach her extraterrestrial friend the true meaning of taking a day off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peridots' Day Out

It was on the 70th rotation of the planet since Peridots' arrival on earth that she made one of the most startling discoveries of her life – the existence of free time.

In all the years since Peridot had first emerged from her hole in her birth kindergarten she had never experienced anything quite like it before and so far she was not enjoying it.

Her restlessness had gotten to the point that she had recently begun experimenting with the 'sleep' activity which Amethyst had taught her about. It seemed bizarre to voluntarily shut off almost all sensory input and go dormant, but she had to admit that it was occasionally refreshing. Lately though the experiences had been marred by strange delusions - false memories and nonsense imagery which rose unbidden in her mind and left her feeling extremely uneasy after waking.

The most recent round of sleep hallucinations had been particularly disturbing and had featured Peridot running in place on a miles long conveyor belt till her gravity connectors sent endless jolts of pain through her body while an enormous Yellow Diamond the size of a mountain drew slowly closer to her with each step she took. Fear had overwhelmed her mind and she screamed as Yellow Diamond reached out toward her with fingers the size of starships but before Peridot could be snatched up and shattered a line of glowing violet light had slashed through the air toward her. In the blink of an eye the green gem had her arms pinned flat to her sides by coils of bejeweled rope and found herself tugged right off the treadmill to land at the feet of Amethyst, her gem glowing with brilliant purple light and a hungry look in her eyes that Peridot found strangely enticing.

Peridot had snapped awake right at that point, her construct form beaded with sweat and a faint green glow emanating from her forehead which she instinctively knew had nothing to do with her searchlight function.

She had spent most of the morning moodily slumped on the couch trying to make sense of her unconscious visions, feeling more restless than ever. Her fingers fiddled around with the buttons of her primitive earth reports-log device and replayed her most recent entry which she had recorded almost immediately after waking. The slightly distorted voice playing back from the magnetic speaker had an almost manic edge to it that Peridot was unaccustomed to hearing in her logs.

_"Obviously the 'sleep' experiments I had undertaken have been a huge mistake. Rather than bringing me increased understanding of how the lifeforms of this world operate they just seem to create more internal chaos and are possibly a sign pointing to some deeper underlying madness._

_Of course terminating these studies will simply reintroduce the problem they were intended to correct - namely the complete lack of useful work for me to perform. Since the destruction of the Cluster my technical skills have only been utilized a handful of times, mainly to diagnose problems or repair malfunctions in the strange minor machines used by Steven. To think that a gem of my strict training and mastery of technology would be relegated to being nothing more than a glorified robonoid repairing entertainment cubes and 'food' processors._

_Surely there must be some task here worthy of my time and attention? Some mission which only I can perform to further the cause of my newfound allies?_

_Until such a task presents itself however I am completely at a loss for what to do. I feel purposeless. Detached._

_On a side note before terminating my 'sleep' experiments I believe that I should mention an anomaly which I noticed - namely that in every one of my strange 'night-visions', as I have taken to calling them, I realized that Amethyst made an appearance. The other Crystal Gems have featured in several of these delusions at one point or another, but only Amethyst has consistently played a major part in each of these visions."_

Peridot stopped the tape and rewound it back before the final note in the log and recorded over it with silence.

 _I can see no point in recording that particular bit of data for future reference since it could prove... compromising,_ Peridot thought.

_Particularly if anyone else were to gain unauthorized access to my log tapes._

_Again._

A distinctive chime and vaguely wet sucking noise sounded behind Peridot and she turned to see the door to the temple split along its length and strands of viscous purple slime manifested along the seam. The curiously organic looking entrance could only be the portal to Amethysts room, and Peridot felt a surge of interest rise up through her sluggish mind at the sight of the short purple gem stepping out into the living room. Of all the gems Peridot had known on earth or Homeworld she had found herself drawn most to Amethyst, and the Crystal Gems' easy laughter and various quirks fascinated Peridot. Though Amethyst still possessed the great strength and sharp edged temper common to her type, she was completely unlike any quartz that Peridot had ever known, and was certainly the only quartz whose company that she had ever truly enjoyed. 

"Amethyst! Thank the stars you're here," Peridot chirped, hopping up off the couch to join her friend in the kitchen.

"Uh, I'm pretty much always here P-Dot," Amethyst replied as she made her way to the fridge and started to rummage through its disorganized shelves.

"I've been sitting completely idle for _hours_ ," Peridot said, dragging out the last word with a shudder, " _Please_ tell me that you have some sort of task or mission assignment for me to perform,"

"Um… well I'm making myself a sandwich right now. I don't know if you'd want to help with that or not," Amethyst suggested with a shrug.

Peridot glared with suspicion at the ingredients that Amethyst had piled on the countertop.

"Is this another one of those 'food' items that you and Steven indulge in?" she asked.

"Yup, do you want one?" Amethyst asked as she jammed half of a whole roast chicken between thick slices of bread and topped it off with an entire jar of expired marmalade.

As an afterthought she shattered the now empty jar in her fist and sprinkled the glass shards on top of the meat to give it an extra kick.

Peridot grimaced as Amethyst took a large bite from the finished product. The sound of glass, bone and cold meat grinding together in Amethysts' mouth sent an unpleasant shudder up Peridots' back and caused her already stiff hair to bristle outward further.

"No thank you. My previous experiment with this human custom didn't end particularly well," Peridot said, her lip curling in disgust at the memory.

"Heh, yeah it was kind of funny how much you were freaking out about the whole digestion thing," Amethyst said with a throaty chuckle.

"I feel that if I had been told of that... aspect... of the food process beforehand that I may not have jumped into this experiment so readily," Peridot grumbled.

"Well you know what they say Peri, you live and you learn," Amethyst replied.

She opened her jaws wide and jammed the rest of the sandwich in her mouth and then licked the last few stray drops of marmalade and glass slivers off her fingers with a look of contentment on her face.

"Well now that your 'fooding' is done-," Peridot began.

"Eating," Amethyst corrected.

"Whatever you call it," Peridot snapped, "Now that it's finally over can you tell me what missions you have lined up for the day?"

"Missions?" Amethyst asked with an amused quirk of her eyebrow.

"Yes. Surely Garnet has assigned you something to do for the current activity period – from my observations she seems to be the leader here," Peridot said.

"Yeah, Garnets pretty much been the boss of the team ever since Rose… left," Amethyst said.

"Well what duties do you have? Is there anything that might require the expertise of a master technician to complete?" Peridot asked, failing to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

"Nope. Haven't heard about any new missions for today so far," Amethyst shrugged.

Peridot groaned and slumped over the counter top. Amethyst cocked her head and eyed the green gem with an expression halfway between amusement and alarm.

"Is something wrong Peri?" Amethyst asked.

"Yes! It's all this endless… I don't know what you call it… time spent not doing _anything_. It makes me feel so frustrated and uneasy and tired," Peridot replied, her voice muffled since she hadn't bothered to lift her head off the formica surface.

"That's called boredom," Amethyst said.

"Is it some kind of earth condition? Do you have it as well?" Peridot asked.

"Uh, yeah I guess I've been feeling kind of bored today too," Amethyst replied.

"Oh stars what if it's contagious!" Peridot yelped, scrambling back away from the counter.

"What? Are you seriously saying that you've _never_ been bored before?" Amethyst asked, her tone incredulous.

"No? Should I have been?" Peridot asked.

"Well yeah. I thought it happened to everyone when they don't have anything to do or if things are… I dunno, repetitive or whatever," Amethyst said.

Peridot blinked and said nothing, trying to digest the unfamiliar concept.

"You mean like… an unspecified period of time between assignments with no pending duties? Or an unscheduled indefinite Leisure Cycle?" Peridot asked, trying to frame the words right in her mind.

"I guess you could look at it like that if you were a giant nerd yeah," Amethyst said.

"Is this a common occurrence here on earth?" Peridot asked uneasily.

"It can be sometimes," Amethyst said.

"Well what do we do then?" Peridot asked, trying to keep the edge of panic out of her voice.

"We relax? Have fun maybe?" Amethyst said.

Before coming to Earth Peridots' concept of entertainment had been to curl up with a freshly downloaded batch of research logs to read the field reports from the great technicians of the past (especially her personal hero Olivine Facet 4 Cut 3G7 who had first discovered the link between the depth of gem placement in kindergarten and the resulting differences in a fully grown gems energy levels - by the Diamonds what exciting times those must have been!). Studying technical logs was admittedly not every gems idea of a good time, but she had always enjoyed her work.

Now there were no more reports to read. No pending assignments that Peridot was required to complete. No new missions waiting for her to accept on her screen. She had even run through her Camp Pining Hearts tape so many times that she was able to recall every moment of it with perfectly clarity so there wasn't any point in watching it again.

For the first time in Peridots' existence she had no purpose.

That thought triggered a minor cascade of almost-terror in her mind.

_How could anyone stand this?_

"Well if you're feeling that bored would you want to maybe hang out with me for a while?" Amethyst offered, concerned by the increasing look of uneasiness on Peridots' face.

"Hang out?" Peridot asked.

"Yeah, you know – spend some time together doing fun junk. We've never really had a chance for just the two of us to hang out before," Amethyst said.

Peridot saw a welcoming smile curled up on Amethysts plump lips and felt a warm sensation radiate out from her core at the sight.

"Yes, that seems like it would be very 'cool'," Peridot said, giving Amethyst a small catlike smile of her own in return.

Amethysts' smile widened further and she wrapped a thick purple arm around Peridot's shoulders in a friendly fashion.

"Alright Peridactyl, let's see just how much trouble two bored gems like us can get into with a Pearl-free afternoon all to ourselves," Amethyst said.

The feel of Amethyst pressed up close against Peridot was causing her earlier feeling of warmth to intensify and she started to experience a strangely pleasant burning in the core of her gem. She shook her head rapidly at the unfamiliar sensation and it faded somewhat, though she still felt a pulse of inner happiness at Amethysts' closeness.

"Yes, lead the way to the fun," Peridot said, mentally trying to banish the beads of moisture that had started to form around her face as she grew ever more conscious of Amethyst leaning against her.

“I’ll just need to get a few things first though,” Peridot said, reluctantly wriggling her way out of Amethysts’ affectionate headlock and patting her disheveled brush of hair back into place.

“Alright, just grab what you need and then we can take off,” Amethyst replied.

Amethyst couldn’t help but feel a little thrill of impatient excitement run through her as she waited by the door of the house for Peridot to finish getting ready to head out. Even if a trip down to the sleepy little beachside town near the Temple wasn’t normally a thrilling experience she couldn’t wait to see what Peridot was going to do once they got there. She had found that the small green gems reactions to any kind of new experience were almost always hilarious in kind of an adorable way and she was really looking forward to the day.

Of course at the rate things were going Amethyst wasn’t sure that they would make it into town at all.

While Amethyst stood leaned up against the doorway tapping her foot with barely restrained impatience Peridot had been scampering around the living room in a frenzy, pulling batteries out of various remote controls, extra cassette tapes from off the shelves and a number of other objects that Amethyst couldn’t see a use for from all over the room and jamming the lot into an old canvas shopping bag.

“You do know that we’re just going to be going down to the town and not running away to the other side of the world, right?” Amethyst teased.

“I’ve never been to this ‘town’ before and wish to be prepared for any eventuality,” Peridot snipped back as reached her small hands underneath the couch and pulled out a pair of paint cans covered in flame designs.

“Do you think these will be necessary?” Peridot asked, holding up her makeshift stilts for Amethysts inspection.

“Only if you want to be able to ride the roller coaster at Funland,” Amethyst joked.

“Will this roller coaster help eliminate my feelings of ‘boredom’?” Peridot asked.

“I think it just might,” Amethyst said in a faux-serious tone.

“Excellent!” Peridot replied, and she stuffed the cans into the already bulging satchel.

“Have you got everything you need already?” Amethyst asked.

Peridot opened up the bag and took a quick visual inventory of its contents.

“I believe so. I’m somewhat apprehensive about going out among these aliens without a weapon of some kind though.” Peridot asked.

“Trust me Peridot, humans are mostly harmless – especially the ones who live around here,” Amethyst replied.

“Harmless to _you_ maybe, but I’m not a soldier. What am I going to do if they suddenly decide to attack me?” Peridot snapped back.

Peridot had no skill in hiding her emotions and Amethyst could hear the nervousness in her voice lurking beneath its normal arrogant edge.

“Well if any human does turn crazy and go after you then I’ll just take care of them myself,” Amethyst said in a calming tone.

“Really?” Peridot asked.

“Yeah, that’s a promise,” Amethyst assured her.

A look of obvious relief flashed across Peridots’ narrow features.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Peridot asked as she hopped up and heaved the over-packed canvas bag onto her shoulder with a pained grunt of effort.

“Are you going to be alright carrying that thing? We’re gonna be gone for a while,” Amethyst said.

“I’ll be fine,” Peridot said through gritted teeth as she struggled to straighten her back under the weight of the pack.

She successfully managed to take a few halting steps before she lost her balance and ended up sprawled face down on the living room floor.

“Are you ok?” Amethyst asked as she knelt down to offer Peridot a hand.

“My gem is undamaged, though I can’t say the same for my pride,” Peridot said in a muffled tone, taking Amethysts’ hand and pulling herself off the floor. Peridot glanced back at the overladen bag, rubbing her chin in thought.

“If Steven wouldn’t mind me disassembling a few of his devices I’m sure that I could build a crude hover-sled to carry my supplies in just a few hours,” Peridot speculated.

“Want me to just carry the bag for you instead?” Amethyst offered.

“That would probably be much more practical,” Peridot said, feeling a blush of dark green color rise to her face.

Amethyst grabbed the strap of the bag and then slung it over her shoulder without the slightest hint of effort. Of course it was quite natural for a quartz like Amethyst to be strong, but the casual display of that strength was still quite impressive to Peridot who felt a small spark of equal parts envy and admiration at the sight.

With all preparations now complete the two gems set off side by side down the beach and Peridot could already feel her earlier sluggishness dropping away with each step.

* * *

 

“See? I told you that you didn’t have anything to worry about with humans,” Amethyst had said to Peridot once they found themselves in the quiet bustle of Beach City.

The two gems were strolling along the main strip of the boardwalk near Funland and Peridots’ eyes had grown wide as she darted her head back and forth to take in the sights. Humans seemed to delight in splashing every square inch of their creations with garish colors, blinking lights and puzzling designs unlike the soft pastels and elegant geometric embellishments of Homeworlds' architecture.

Most of the people strolling down the street hadn’t spared more than a glance in the gems direction, aside from a few who gave Amethyst a casual wave or a curious look at the sight of Peridot. Generations of sporadic monster attacks and strange anomalies around the town had made the sight of a small green stranger from outer space seem relatively tame by comparison.

“I admit that I may have been slightly overcautious earlier,” Peridot said, feeling somehow disappointed that her appearance among the humans hadn’t caused them to exhibit more interest.

“Only slightly? You hid behind me when we saw a bunch of teenagers and kept telling me to destroy them,” Amethyst said.

“Well how was I supposed to know they weren’t dangerous? The way they had been dancing together as we approached suggested that they were going to attempt a fusion and then attack us!” Peridot snapped back.

Amethyst snorted with llaughter and gave Peridot an affectionate pat on the back.

“Peri, you’re a treasure,” Amethyst said as she wiped a tear from her eye.

Peridot felt a small jolt of indignation at Amethysts’ lack of concern for the threat to their lives, but a smile of her own perked up the corners of her lips at the compliment.

“So, what are we going to do now that we’ve reached the humans’ ‘town’?” Peridot asked.

“I guess it depends on what you feel like doing. I think Steven said that we’re all banned for life from the arcade, but that place was lame anyway. There’s lots of restaurants if you’re in the mood for trying more food-,” Amethyst began.

“I am most definitely _not_ interested in the food idea,” Peridot interjected.

“There’s also Funland – some of the rides are alright,” Amethyst said.

“Funland seems like the most correct choice to me. It does have ‘fun’ in the name, which is what we came in search of,” Peridot replied after a moment of consideration.

“You guys don’t have false advertising on Homeworld do you?” Amethyst asked in a bemused voice.

“What’s advertising?” Peridot asked.

“Alright then, Funland it is,” Amethyst said.

If the bored teenager manning the ticket booth was surprised by the sight of two short neon-colored ladies wanting entrance to the amusement park he didn’t seem to show it. Amethyst and the human were haggling for a while, and though Peridot couldn’t follow all of the conversation exactly she gathered that they were demanding a number of something called ‘dollars’ before they would admit the gems into Funland. A short lively discussion followed and after Amethyst had demonstrated her ability to shapeshift into a huge musclebound form wearing a mask the human became extremely excited. All talk of ‘dollars’ ceased and the gems were given a pair of bracelets in exchange for Amethyst agreeing to take several pictures with the teen together on his communicator.

“What was that all about?” Peridot had asked once Amethyst had returned to her standard form.

“I’m kind of a celebrity around here,” Amethyst said with a shrug as she slipped the free pass for rides around her wrist.

The two walked through the avenues of colorful booths and perplexing machines with Amethyst showing Peridot the sights and answering her rapid-fire barrage of questions about the sheer number of bizarre things she saw. The humans themselves were especially startling in their lack of uniformity – no two of them appeared to be same and Peridot was puzzled at just how many different models of human there must be in total. The centerpiece of the park was the roller-coaster and when Amethyst pointed it out Peridot looked it over eagerly, remembering that Amethyst had mentioned this very device in their earlier conversation about solutions for her boredom. Peridot wasn’t sure what she should have expected, but she was let down by the reality of the ride sitting in front of her.

“I’m not sure what is supposed to be so fun about this machine – it just looks like an extremely crude ground transport, except that it is so poorly designed that it returns you right back to where you started from instead of taking you somewhere useful,” Peridot said as she gave the long loops of track an appraising look.

“Well the fun part is supposed to be the journey, not the destination,” Amethyst replied in a dry voice.

“Why are all the humans riding on it screaming? It isn’t even going particularly fast,” Peridot said in a critical tone.

“Maybe you should get on it and try it for yourself?” Amethyst suggested.

“I don’t think I will, it seems like a waste of time,” Peridot sniffed.

“Oh, is that it? I just thought that maybe you didn’t want to get on because you were chicken,” Amethyst teased.

“Clearly I am not – you’ve already demonstrated what a chicken is to me and I don’t resemble them at all,” Peridot replied defensively.

“It’s an expression P-Dot, it means that I think you’re scared to ride the coaster,” Amethyst clarified.

“Me? Scared of riding that thing?” Peridot scoffed, pointing at the line of cars speeding across the track.

“That’s what it looks like to me,” Amethyst said with a nod.

“I’ve piloted star-ships through the endless darkness of space at speeds orders of magnitude faster than light – there is no way that riding some sort of simple track based alien transport could scare me,” Peridot said, her blonde hair bristling at the accusation.

“Well it looks like it’s going to stop pretty soon, so why don’t you prove it and get on with me on the next go-around?” Amethyst challenged.

“With pleasure,” Peridot snapped.

She glanced over at the cardboard cutout of Mr. Smiley declaring that you needed to be “This Tall” to ride the Funland Fun-Coaster.

“Could you give me my height optimizers first though?” Peridot asked, pointing to the bag hanging from Amethysts’ shoulder.

Peridots’ swaggering confidence lasted right up until the bar for the roller coaster car came down and locked into place, securing Peridot and Amethyst in their shared seat.

_I’ll show Amethyst who is the chicken here. What’s so scary about riding some small rusty cart around in a big circle? It’s just a simple human machine._

Peridots’ pupils shrank to pinpoints as the cart began to lurch its way slowly up the tracks, rattling and jolting along the way.

_An extremely primitive machine. Designed by humans. A primitive human machine which I am now trapped in which will shortly be accelerating to speeds which no longer appear to be as slow as I had estimated earlier. A machine that seems to have absolutely no safety features whatsoever except for a simple metal bar holding me in place._

_Oh Diamonds what have I done?_

Peridot was already panicking before the coaster had reached the top of its first peak, and once it dropped in a sudden lurch of tooth-rattling speed the gem had instinctively clung tight onto Amethysts’ arm and screamed for the rest of the ride.

“Are you still feeling bored?” Amethyst teased once the pair had stepped off the coaster.

“No, I think I am probably about as far from that emotion as I have been in a long time,” Peridot said in a shaken voice as she removed the can-stilts from her feet and handed them back to Amethyst.

“Told you that would do the trick,” Amethyst said as she tucked the stilts back into the bag.

“Yes, though I’m not sure that the problem was worth such a severe solution,” Peridot replied, feeling grateful for the touch of solid ground under her gravity connectors once again.

“Would you want to get on again? I think these bracelets are good for the whole day,” Amethyst asked.

“NO! I mean… no, I think that one experience with this example of human engineering will be all that I need. Possibly for the rest of my life,” Peridot replied.

“Alright, well I’m going to go get some cotton candy and hotdogs, want to come?” Amethyst asked.

“I think I’ll just sit here for a moment and re-orient myself,” Peridot said.

The pair stood unmoving for a moment.

“Uh, Peri I think you’ll need to let go of my hand before I can go get my snacks?” Amethyst said.

Peridots’ head snapped up and she realized that she had still been clinging to Amethysts’ arm ever since they’d gotten off the ride.

“Oh, of course,” Peridot said, releasing her grip with an unexpectedly strong sense of reluctance.

While Amethyst shoved her way through the press of humans wandering around the park Peridot decided to take a closer look at her surroundings. After a few minutes of observation Peridot concluded that many of the booths appeared to be combat training exercises of some sort, with humans demonstrating violent skills such as throwing objects at targets or operating odd water based weapons. Those who demonstrated the most skill were given large soft looking things resembling life-forms in recognition for their achievements. Peridot thought back to the variety of similar looking objects that she had seen thrown around Stevens’ room and decided that he clearly had more potentially dangerous skills than she had first assumed. This was extremely important information to be added to his file in her log later.

Peridot soon grew tired of watching people vie with one another for rank in the humans odd artificial-animal based caste system and she set off to find the still absent Amethyst. As her eyes scanned the booths for her friend she spotted something intriguing, a display of extremely colorful shirts all bearing images of human faces on them. Peridots’ curiosity was piqued and she wandered over to the booth just in time to see a large human covered in odd colorful markings all over their arms operating some sort of air-compression based pigment distributor finish a portrait of a seated customer. The colorful human held up the shirt for inspection and Peridot was amazed to see that the image on the shirt was an almost perfect likeness of their customer.

 _I never knew I wanted this until now_ , Peridot thought as she imagined having a face-shirt of her very own.

Peridot rushed up to the booth and the human with the image making tool looked down at her with a puzzled expression.

“Are you lost kid? Where are your mom and dad?” he asked, glancing around.

Peridot thought about the question for a moment.

“I never met the ‘Mom’ person, and I haven’t seen the ‘Dad’ since the day he fell off the roof and failed to fly,” Peridot said.

The man’s eyebrows raised in sympathy.

“That’s pretty rough kid,” he said.

“I suppose so? Enough about that though, I require a face-shirt. One with my face on it, not his face,” Peridot said, pointing toward the other human who had just left the booth with his new shirt.

“Alright, then I’ll require twenty bucks,” the man said, holding out an expectant hand.

“What are those?” Peridot asked.

The colorful man’s eyebrow quirked.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked.

“I’m not from around here,” Peridot said with a sheepish expression.

Peridot held up her arm and flashed the bracelet strapped to it at the bemused human.

“If you require an exchange I have this wrist-pass – I have already ridden the roller coaster and do not require it anymore,” Peridot offered.

“Sorry kiddo, this booth’s cash only,” the man said with an apologetic shrug.

Peridots’ shoulders slumped in disappointment and she muttered under her breath about the perplexing way that this planet operated.

Amethyst found Peridot wandering around in a sullen funk. The purple gem had been annoyed at how long it had taken to get her snacks since the cotton candy booth operator had been so ridiculously argumentative about letting her dip her chili-dogs into the machine to give them a nice pink sugar coating. Seeing the look on Peridots’ face made her forget about her own irritation and once she heard the story of what happened the two marched back to the shirt booth. Peridot wasn’t quite sure what the exchange between Amethyst and the face-shirt human meant, but apparently he was more than willing to create a shirt for her in exchange for a handful of small discs made of gold stamped with odd images which she pulled out from a pocket in her leggings.

He even threw in an extra shirt for Amethyst, which seemed especially generous to Peridot.

* * *

Evening had given way to night and Funland had closed its gates for the day. Peridot and Amethyst had been shuffled out along with the rest of the crowd of customers, and the amusement park staff breathed a sigh of relief. As far as gem visits into town went this one had gone relatively smoothly, and they were grateful that at least nothing important was broken today.

Before long the gems had reached the beach and their steps had slowed as they walked beside the surf, their conversation drifting through strange turnings and diversions. Amethyst had told Peridot about her life on earth, and Peridot had spoken of her job back on Homeworld and the two were alternately amused, shocked and fascinated by each other’s stories.

"I find it curious that even if you earth gems are rebels from Homeworld society that you still seem to have a height based hierarchy," Peridot said.

"What?" Amethyst said with a snort of laughter, "Is that actually how you tell who's in charge back on your planet? The biggest gem gets to be the boss?"

"Well obviously that's a gross simplification of the subtle distinctions between ranks and gem classifications-," Peridot stammered.

Amethyst smirked at her.

"But pretty much yes, the tallest gem in a group is usually the leader," Peridot admitted finally after she saw her half-hearted justifications had no effect.

"Well Garnet's the leader here because she's… well because she's Garnet. It doesn't really have anything to do with how tall she is," Amethyst said.

"I'll never get used to how you clo- Crystal Gems here on earth do things," Peridot grumbled.

"I'd say that you've been getting the hang of things pretty well so far. Plus, you're pretty fun to have around," Amethyst said.

Peridot felt a small bubble of warm pride pulse through her at the compliment.

“I’ve had a very enjoyable time today Amethyst,” Peridot said.

“Yeah, me too,” Amethyst said, “I haven’t really gotten to just hang out with someone for fun in a long time,”

“Would you want to do this again? Go on another expedition with me that is, not necessarily to the Funland place,” Peridot asked, a shy note creeping into her voice.

A deep purple flush rose to Amethysts’ cheeks and she smiled.

“Yeah, I’d like that a lot,” she answered.

Amethyst drew closer to Peridot and her arm reached out on an impulse and took Peridots hand. The feel of Peridots’ small delicate hand folded in the warm grip of Amethysts’ fingers was surprisingly pleasant to the Homeworld gem, and she could feel something almost like an electric current running between them.

“We don’t touch each other much on Homeworld,” Peridot said, her pale green cheeks darkening to an emerald shade.

“Should I let go then?” Amethyst said, sounding unsure.

“No. I like it,” Peridot said in a quiet voice.

The pair had stopped walking entirely and stood listening to the gentle roar of the night tide washing up along the beach. Peridot gave Amethyst a sidelong glance and noticed that she was doing the same, and their eyes each snapped forward almost simultaneously.

“You enjoy many different human things like sleep and eating, right?” Peridot asked, trying to keep down the nervous tremor that had started come into her voice.

“Yeah, that stuff is pretty cool,” Amethyst replied, her own voice devoid of its usual air of brash confidence.

Peridot cleared her throat and glanced down at her feet digging into the sand.

“I saw a thing that human’s do on _Camp Pining Hearts_ which I was curious about,” Peridot said.

“What was that?” Amethyst asked, confusion in her voice at the sudden shift in the conversation.

“I think it was some sort of ritual or gesture to show… um… admiration or possibly… affection,” Peridot said, stammering out the last word.

“What are you talk-,” Amethyst began before Peridot grabbed her face and moved in for a very clumsy, but pleasantly surprising kiss.

From the moment Amethysts' plump lips were pressed up against Peridots' she was overwhelmed by a rush of unfamiliar sensations. The taste of Amethysts' skin, the strangely organic feel of their mouths pressing together, Amethysts' thick fingers moving up Peridots’ back to gently cradle the back of her head and pull her in closer.

The contact was immensely pleasurable, and Peridot was soon lost in the experience. She was surprised when Amethyst’s tongue slipped into her mouth, but she returned it in kind, eager to enjoy this new experience.

When they broke contact Peridot could see that Amethysts’ eyes were wide and seemed to gleam like stars, her cheeks flush with a rich royal purple color.

“Did I do it right?” Peridot asked in a nervous voice.

“Yes, but why don’t we try it a few more times just to be sure?” Amethyst replied in a husky voice.

Peridot was more than happy to.


End file.
